The Glovemaker: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Description

A Publishers Weekly starred review

In the inhospitable lands of the Utah Territory, during the winter of 1888, thirty-seven-year-old Deborah Tyler waits for her husband, Samuel, to return home from his travels as a wheelwright. It is now the depths of winter, Samuel is weeks overdue, and Deborah is getting worried. Deborah lives in Junction, a tiny town of seven Mormon families scattered along the floor of a canyon, and she earns her living by tending orchards and making work gloves. Isolated by the red-rock cliffs that surround the town, she and her neighbors live apart from the outside world, even regarded with suspicion by the Mormon faithful who question the depth of their belief. When a desperate stranger who is pursued by a Federal Marshal shows up on her doorstep seeking refuge, it sets in motion a chain of events that will turn her life upside down. The man, a devout Mormon, is on the run from the US government, which has ruled the practice of polygamy to be a felony. Although Deborah is not devout and doesn’t subscribe to polygamy, she is distrustful of non-Mormons with their long tradition of persecuting believers of her wider faith. But all is not what it seems, and when the Marshal is critically injured, Deborah and her husband’s best friend, Nels Anderson, are faced with life and death decisions that question their faith, humanity, and both of their futures.

About the Author

Ann Weisgarber was born and raised in Kettering, Ohio. She has lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and Des Moines, Iowa. She is the author of The Promise and The Personal History of Rachel Dupree, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers. She lives in Galveston, Texas.

Praise For…

“Weisgarber’s marvelous third novel (after The Promise) is set in the rugged canyon country of southern Utah during the winter of 1887–1888 as a Mormon woman struggles to hold her faith in the face of religious persecution and her fear of the law. . . . This is a rich, powerful, and wholly immersive tale grounded in Utah and Mormon history.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Weisgarber makes effective use of early Mormon history to explore moral choice, and compression in language, setting, number of characters, and chronology lends this tale an unusual force." —Booklist

“A compelling story balanced on the knife edge between religion and ethics, crime and sin, compassion and fear.” —Mary Doria Russell, author of Doc and Epitaph

" The Glovemaker is another triumph from one of our country’s finest historical novelists. Once again Ann Weisgarber gives us a spellbinding, multi-layered heroine whose survival is jeopardized by the harshness of the land and the man she loves. A tale of moral complexity as compelling and suspenseful as the great American classic, The Ox-Box Incident, The Glovemaker deftly explores a woman, alone with her conscience and the devastating consequences of serving community over self, finding the strength to choose right over righteousness.” —Sarah Bird, author of Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen and Above the East China Sea

"“When I first started reading Ann Weisgarber’s new book, I had no expectation that a novel about renegade Mormons in Utah in the 1880s could turn out to be so precisely suspenseful that, if Alfred Hitchcock were alive, he might snap up the film rights. The Glovemaker is a humane, high-velocity glimpse into the ever-simmering dilemmas of faith and conscience.” —Stephen Harrigan, author of The Gates of the Alamo and Remember Ben Clayton

" The Glovemaker, placed in Utah in 1888, is a beautiful novel that while deeply anchored in history feels oddly relevant in today's world. Told primarily from the point of Deborah, a Latter-day Saint in Mormon country who cannot stand to watch federal government lawmen hunt Mormon men and their families. The issue then was religious liberty and Deborah finds herself in the thick of it." —Jan Jarboe Russell, author of The Train to Crystal City

"Ann Weisgarber is a historian of the first degree, but her true strength lies in crafting sweeping and often poignant fictional narratives of the iconic women who helped settle the American heartland. Ms. Weisgarber, in The Glovemaker, has once again created a heroine of extraordinary grace and courage in a challenging, at times violent, but ultimately sublime landscape." —Kathleen Kent, author of The Heretic’s Daughter

" The Glovemaker, Ann Weisgarber’s engrossing, troubling, honest-to-goodness third novel, is as stark and touching as the lives described, as tense and testing as the Utah backlands where it’s set, as fine as any fiction you will read this year." —Jim Crace, author of Harvest and The Melody

"'I loved everything about this book—the characters, the plot, the vivid and unique setting—but most of all I loved the fact that it felt so raw and honest." —Juliet West, author of The Faithful

"In this tension-filled and beautifully written novel about loyalty and love, courage and conscience, Ann Weisgarber introduces us to a frontier woman forced to make a split-second decision that could shatter her family and her entire fragile community—or redeem them all."—Tripfiction.com

“Weisgarber’s marvelous third novel (after The Promise) is set in the rugged canyon country of southern Utah during the winter of 1887–1888 as a Mormon woman struggles to hold her faith in the face of religious persecution and her fear of the law. . . . This is a rich, powerful, and wholly immersive tale grounded in Utah and Mormon history.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A compelling story balanced on the knife edge between religion and ethics, crime and sin, compassion and fear.” —Mary Doria Russell, author of Doc and Epitaph

" The Glovemaker is another triumph from one of our country’s finest historical novelists. Once again Ann Weisgarber gives us a spellbinding, multi-layered heroine whose survival is jeopardized by the harshness of the land and the man she loves. A tale of moral complexity as compelling and suspenseful as the great American classic, The Ox-Box Incident, The Glovemaker deftly explores a woman, alone with her conscience and the devastating consequences of serving community over self, finding the strength to choose right over righteousness.” —Sarah Bird, author of Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen and Above the East China Sea

"“When I first started reading Ann Weisgarber’s new book, I had no expectation that a novel about renegade Mormons in Utah in the 1880s could turn out to be so precisely suspenseful that, if Alfred Hitchcock were alive, he might snap up the film rights. The Glovemaker is a humane, high-velocity glimpse into the ever-simmering dilemmas of faith and conscience.” —Stephen Harrigan, author of The Gates of the Alamo and Remember Ben Clayton

" The Glovemaker, placed in Utah in 1888, is a beautiful novel that while deeply anchored in history feels oddly relevant in today's world. Told primarily from the point of Deborah, a Latter-day Saint in Mormon country who cannot stand to watch federal government lawmen hunt Mormon men and their families. The issue then was religious liberty and Deborah finds herself in the thick of it." —Jan Jarboe Russell, author of The Train to Crystal City

"Ann Weisgarber is a historian of the first degree, but her true strength lies in crafting sweeping and often poignant fictional narratives of the iconic women who helped settle the American heartland. Ms. Weisgarber, in The Glovemaker, has once again created a heroine of extraordinary grace and courage in a challenging, at times violent, but ultimately sublime landscape." —Kathleen Kent, author of The Heretic’s Daughter

" The Glovemaker, Ann Weisgarber’s engrossing, troubling, honest-to-goodness third novel, is as stark and touching as the lives described, as tense and testing as the Utah backlands where it’s set, as fine as any fiction you will read this year." —Jim Crace, author of Harvest and The Melody

"'I loved everything about this book—the characters, the plot, the vivid and unique setting—but most of all I loved the fact that it felt so raw and honest." —Juliet West, author of The Faithful